The Abominable: A Novel

the glorious climber’s opened abdominal cavity, and I thought—not for the first sickening time—that I might have been looking at the last thing Mallory had eaten on his last day alive.

I shook my head. This sort of thinking didn’t help our current situation. We were crouched in a rough circle around the cached oxygen rigs.

“…Sherpas probably won’t flee up the fixed ropes and ladder to Camp Four because they know these… killers…would have them trapped up there,” J.C. was saying. “But the same applies to us. The climbing part of this expedition is over—isn’t it, Ree-shard? Why on earth would we haul these heavy oxygen sets back up the glacier?”

The Deacon sighed.

“We have to climb again if we get the chance,” Reggie said softly.

“Why?” I asked. “You can’t expect us to continue the search for your cousin after all this, can you? I mean… think about it, please, Lady Bromley-Montfort…fourteen of our Sherpas are dead, a dozen of them at the hands of sadistic butchers. How on earth could we even consider going back up the mountain? And for what…to summit it?”

“No, not to summit,” Reggie insisted. “But it’s more imperative than ever that we find Bromley’s body.”

“She’s right,” said the Deacon. Reggie blinked at him in obvious surprise at his quick agreement.

I didn’t understand at all, but I could see that Jean-Claude was nodding. His glance moved from Reggie to the Deacon and back. “This expedition never was just about recovering Percival’s body for the family, was it, Reggie?”

She bit her lower lip until I could see blood, black in the starlight. “No,” she said at last. “It never was.” She shifted her gaze to the Deacon. “You know why it’s so important to find Percy’s body? Or to make sure no one else can?”

“I believe so,” whispered the Deacon.

“My God,” said Reggie. “Do we have a mutual friend? Someone who writes a lot of cheques?”

The Deacon smiled. “But who prefers it to be backed up by gold? Yes, my lady.”

“My God,” Reggie said again, running her fingers over her brow as if she were hot. “I never guessed that you also might…”

“I don’t understand a word either of you has just said,” said J.C. “But perhaps I should let you know that Nawang Bura has slipped away in the darkness.”

The Deacon nodded. “About two minutes ago. He headed north, back towards Base Camp and, perhaps, escape.”

“He’s not a coward,” said Pasang.

“No, none of the Sherpas have been cowards,” agreed the Deacon. “They’re some of the bravest men I’ve ever known, and that’s saying a lot after the War. But Nawang and the others are up against something extraordinary that their faith and upbringing tell them is a real threat.”

“What do you know about their faith, Ree-shard?” Jean-Claude sounded irritated.

It was Reggie who answered. “Didn’t you two know that Captain Deacon has been a Buddhist for years?”

I stifled a laugh. “That’s nonsense. The Deacon didn’t even want to go for Dzatrul Rinpoche’s blessing ceremony.”

“There are Buddhists who don’t believe in demons and who don’t venerate or worship statues of the Buddha,” the Deacon said.

My smile went away. “You can’t be serious.”

“Haven’t you seen your friend sitting in the lotus position, in silence, every morning during the trek in?” asked Pasang.

“Oui,” said J.C., sounding as shocked and disbelieving as I was. “But I thought he was…thinking.”

“Me too,” I said. “Planning the day.”

“People thinking about the coming day don’t hum ‘Om mani padme hum’ under their breath while they’re sitting in the lotus position,” Reggie said.

“Well, dress me up and call me Sally,” said Jean-Claude.

I confess that I barked a quite audible laugh then. Where the hell had J.C. learned that phrase?

“May I ask why we’re wasting time here discussing my possible philosophical peculiarities,” said the Deacon, “when we have to make a decision now whether to gather the Sherpas at Camp Three and make a run for it—or to get as many Sherpas started north as we can get going—and then the five of us head up to the Col before our Luger-carrying yeti chums get there? Or should we also make a run for it down the valley?”

“One question first, Ree-shard.”

“What’s that, Jean-Claude?”

“When exactly did you become a Buddhist?”

“One July nineteen sixteen,” whispered the Deacon. “But luckily for all of us right now, I’m a poor excuse for a Buddhist. If I get a chance to kill these people who’ve murdered our Sherpa friends, I will kill them without the slightest compunction or hesitation. If I do so, you may call me a lapsed Buddhist.”

For the second time in less than twenty-four hours I felt goose bumps pop up on both arms and the hair there and on the back of my neck stand straight up. Kill all of the strangers? How could we possibly do that when they had all the guns and we had these little toy flare pistols?

“I’ll follow you anywhere,” said Jean-Claude.

“Me too,” I whispered. Did I really mean that? I did.

“I shall stay with Lady Bromley-Montfort wherever she goes,” said Pasang. “And obey commands from whomever she follows.”

The Deacon rubbed his forehead, as if he really didn’t want to assume command again in any situation where people were going to kill and be killed. But he said, “Once we go back up onto that glacier headed for Camp Three, there may be no turning back. You’ll just have to trust in our judgment…in this case, Reggie’s and mine. She’s still the overall expedition leader. I’ll be the climbing and combat leader.”

“Can you tell us why finding Bromley’s corpse is so much more important than we thought?” whispered J.C. to Reggie.

The lady bit her bloody lip again and looked to the Deacon.

“If we get to Camp Four on the North Col all right, we’ll tell you the reason,” he said. “Otherwise, if we’re going to make a run for Shekar Dzong and points east anyway, it’s better if we don’t discuss it.”

“All right,” said Jean-Claude, as if the Deacon had explained something.

I was totally confused but I didn’t argue.

Far ahead and higher than us and to the east, a red glow suddenly grew. We watched it for several cold minutes.

“It’s out on the glacier,” whispered Reggie. “Closer to us than to Camp Three. A red flare?”

“It’s lasted too long,” said the Deacon, “even to be a railway flare.”

“A horrid light,” whispered Reggie.

“As if someone’s opened the portals of Hell for us,” said Jean-Claude.

“You know it will be a trap,” Pasang said softly. “A lure.”

“Yes,” said the Deacon, “but we need to take some prisoners to see just what the hell is going on and who we’re up against. We’ll be careful, but we have to walk into their trap. Let us think of ourselves as a night patrol in no-man’s-land.”

“Did most of the men on night patrols in no-man’s-land survive their patrols?” I asked.

“No,” said the Deacon. He gestured for us to remove fifteen of the eighteen oxygen tanks and their attached valves and rubber hoses and face masks from the aluminum frames and to stick the rigs into our almost empty rucksacks. We did so with as little wasted energy and noise as possible.

Then the Deacon gestured and—the four of us still in single file behind him with J.C. bringing up the rear— moved in a half-crouching, almost running gait, crampons crunching against rock and ice, up through the maze of